When first-time hotelier John Cretton discovered an old agro-industrial site in a once-thriving Roman settlement, he saw an opportunity to create what he calls “a miraculous piece of architecture.” His vision for Hôtel Borsari is to energize both guests and locals in Martigny, Switzerland. Opening April 2025, the hotel offers an analog retreat in a charming, relatively forgotten town nestled at the foot of the Swiss Alps, just 33 kilometers south of Montreux.
THE LOST PLACE IN THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING
Martigny, a crossroads town between Italy, France, and Switzerland, is where Hôtel Borsari has taken shape over the past five years. “It’s the lost place in the center of everything,” says Cretton, describing a town once at the heart of Roman trade and now experiencing a renaissance. “Martigny was once a critically important town, but after a bypass was built, it lost its historical role as a crossroads.”
Today, Martigny offers something better: less traffic, noise, and pollution, leaving behind a town brimming with energy, a sunny climate, great food and wine, a world-class art museum (Fondation Gianadda), and easy access to regional attractions like Chamonix-Mont Blanc, Zermatt’s Matterhorn, and the famous Montreux Jazz Festival. It’s why Cretton returned to the region, the ancestral home of his father’s family. Though born and educated in England, Cretton was drawn to Valais, the canton of his forebears.
Hôtel Borsari stands proudly in the heart of Martigny, part of LôDzè, a new ‘quartier’ designed to be a catalyst for the town. Positioned alongside the central plaza—La Place Centrale—the property welcomes an increasingly varied and dynamic community seeking out a more holistic, high-quality lifestyle, many returning, like John, to embrace the region’s rich culture and extraordinary landscape, authentic, a place for inviting guests to integrate with the locals.
A BLEND OF TIMES AND MINDS
Hôtel Borsari’s design seamlessly combines 19th-century agro-industrial influences with elements of ancient Roman architecture, creating something that feels at once modern and timeless. Cretton’s passion for history, fuelled by his studies in Latin, Greek, and Ancient History, is reflected in the hotel’s design. Martigny (then Forum Claudii Vallensium) was once a vital Roman settlement, designed and constructed by the legionary architects.
The hotel’s design draws inspiration by what was already there. When he first discovered the site 12 years ago, he stood in a vast underground labyrinth in a disused winery, Les Caves Orsat. The concrete structures around him were “borsaris”—innovative concrete tanks developed in the 19th century for storing wine. Today, the hotel’s 42 rooms and 8 suites are inspired by those same pioneering structures. “We’ve taken the idea of the wine tanks and brought them above ground,” says Cretton. The rooms, crafted from raw and stained concrete, offer “the spirit of a tank, with rather more luxury.” Even the room categories are measured in hectoliters, a nod to the site’s winemaking history and spacious interiors.
The hotel’s two buildings, faced in handmade brick and lime render, surround a cobblestone courtyard—an ideal setting for al fresco dining. This design pays homage to Roman living while offering a contemporary space for guests to relax and connect.
SWISS CONSERVATISM MEETS ENGLISH IDIOSYNCRASY
“A marriage of Swiss conservatism and English idiosyncrasy with a dollop of bloody-mindedness.” The interiors are a collaboration between John Cretton and designer Shaun Evans (together known as Drip and Drip). Despite lacking formal interior design training, Evans focuses on developing brands across disciplines, while Cretton’s keen eye—shaped by passion and a lifetime surrounded by design—is perhaps why Hôtel Borsari’s decoration is so refreshingly unexpected.
“People are very scared of color,” explains Cretton. “However designed most places might be, they still seem too often to drift towards a neutral palette.” Not Hôtel Borsari. Cretton’s fondness for deep, rich tones presents itself in crushed-grape reds, dense-forest greens, basalt blacks, rusty browns and alpine-lake blues symbolizing the fundamental elements of the region. Concrete walls and ceilings, larch-wood windows, oak parquet floors and coir matting meld texture with a certain rawness, also echoed in the occasionally exposed pipework, that prevents anything feeling overly ‘done’.
ADOPTING AN ANALOGUE AESTHETIC
The furniture – much of it vintage, sourced from across Europe – reinforces this love for quality without fuss, showcasing an aesthetic harking back to simpler times. It’s no coincidence industrial designer Dieter Rams features heavily: “He was the ultimate analog designer,” says Cretton. Alongside Rams’s Vitsoe shelving, Swiss-made Elite beds, Rams’s own 620 series seating, Artemide Tolomeo lamps and Davide Groppi lighting have been meticulously chosen for their functionality and beauty.
As an avid music-lover and a collector of vintage audio, Cretton is particularly proud of the 1962 vintage Dieter Rams-designed Braun Audio units in selected rooms, which hang on the original brackets he hunted down in Germany. Of Hôtel Borsari’s soundtrack, he says: “We’ll have a Serge Gainsbourg track, for sure. A little bit of Leonard Cohen. It’s smoky—late ’50s, early ’60s. It’s a bit jazz, a little bit corny French pop, with a smattering of ’70s and ’80s electronic.”
The open-plan bathrooms—separated from the sleeping areas by wool flannel curtains—are another signature of the Drip and Drip design philosophy. Inspired by their childhoods in the ’70s, Cretton and Evans avoided sterile white ceramic in favor of deep, rich colors and textures. The result is a stylish yet functional design, with modern fixtures paired with black and cream terrazzo tiles. Cretton also notes “We were lucky – the water in Martigny is exceptionally soft and pure – it’s direct from Marioty, a spring that originates in the Mont Blanc massif – so to use color and black ironmongery with no risk of limescale, was a huge advantage.”
DISCONNECT AND RECONNECT
The interiors protest against what Cretton considers many hotels’ tendency to “embrace new technology in the worst possible ways.” There’s not a screen in sight. Bakelite switches by Swiss manufacturer Feller click pleasingly. Swiss NDW taps swivel soothingly. Physical keys (albeit smart) supplant keycards. “There’s so much digital,” Cretton laments. “That’s life now, but we don’t want to add to it.” Created for travelers interested in challenging recent notions of luxury, Hôtel Borsari offers a genuine opportunity to disconnect. “We hark back to an era that doesn’t exist, but we’re far from pastiche.”
Below ground, the original borsaris have been transformed into Les Bains Publics— Roman-inspired thermal baths made from red concrete that evokes the color of wine. Occupying 2,000 square meters, the baths are a sanctuary of relaxation and digital detox, with a strict code of conduct and a limit of 30 people at a time. There’s no Wi-Fi, no phones, just the serenity of a “cathedral of bathing.”
SIMPLE PLEASURES DONE WELL
At the heart of Hôtel Borsari is a commitment to quality and simplicity. Cretton’s vision is clear: “We’re about good wines, good coffee, and things that are interesting.” Alphonse coffee bar serves coffee brewed on a beautifully designed Mavam machine, along with specialty teas and fresh juices. The bar opens to both a public courtyard and a more secluded terrace. Next door, La Saucithèque wine bar celebrates the region’s passion for local wines, offering charcuterie and a curated selection of wines from Valais, the highest wine region in Europe and the 180 philosophy. For dining, Le Cercle restaurant, led by Mexican-Italian chef Matteo Salas, known for his creations at Āperi in San Miguel de Allende; draws inspiration from the culinary traditions of the region, as well as from cities like Lyon, Milan, and Zürich—each precisely 180 kilometers from Martigny. LôDzè celebrates the traditions of these three cities and their regions as well as that of its home town, the crossroads – Martigny.
In keeping with his design motto”Analog, not digital. Everything you need and nothing more”, Cretton has created a hotel that forgoes modern interpretations of luxury in favor of something altogether more timeless. At Hôtel Borsari, there’s no “good enough” nor “that’s how it’s done”, no theme-park luxury brand hotel here. Instead, the focus is on innovation and individuality. And the result? A hotel that feels simultaneously of another time, yet utterly current.
Hotel website
Hôtel Borsari, MartignyAv. du Grand-Saint-Bernard 1Martigny, 1920Switzerland
+41 27 720 5959
